Saturday, February 4, 2012

Thursday night the Spurs hosted the 4-18 New Orleans Hornets. No doubt memories of the finish against the Hornets 10 days ago existed, when Tim Duncan had to nail a hook shot at the buzzer in their gym.

This one was mostly defensive, as neither team seemed to get on an offensive roll. Spurs led 23-22 after 1 Q. We live and die by the three, and they weren't falling.. so yeah. But our defense was making stop after stop, and like many games this season, it was anyone's game at the half.. 44-45. Tony & Tim began their usual thing, since

outside shots weren't falling. Neal, Green, Tiago, and even Cory Joseph made a few key shots in a contest in which we as a team only had 16 assists on 34 made shots. No, that's not good.

But it's not Tony's fault, as he led the scoring with 18, and had 7 assists. By the end of the 3rd Q, we led 71-68. This was turning into another common scenario, where we would have to either take control, or LOSE for lack of shot accuracy. Finally realizing the ball must go into Tiago, he scores on 3 of 6 straight offensive trips, and the other three were two TP layups & a Bonner three. Just like that we were up 12, 84-72. Spurs defense took over, and within a few minutes we were up 16. Suddenly, the Hornets only had about a minute left, and we finished-off the WIN 93-81.

Spurs went nuts on Oklahoma City tonight in SA. In the wake of finalized all-star voting, Tony Parker made a HUGE statement to the coaches: "I'm not worthy, you say?" The Spurs made just as big a statement to the rest of the league with a serious pounding of the Thunder, the "favorite" to win the West.

Parker put together a 42-point, 9-assist performance (with NO turnovers) in a 107-96 WIN against the team with the NBA's best record. Kawhi Leonard had the super task of chasing Kevin Durant around most of the night. More on that later, but

Kawhi also made a big impact right off the bat draining 3 early threes.. 13 1st Q points, and once the Spurs took the lead on Kawhi's 1st three (14-13), we would never relinquish it.

25-21 after one Q, Durant certainly made his presence known, compiling 17 first-half points. Parker (16 1st-half pts.) was constantly slashing and dishing, and the Spurs racked-up 8 threes by half-time. The lead was 10 halfway through: 57-47. An explosion of 3 threes in the final 2 minutes of the half reminded me of the Jan. 17th game @Miami, where we had 63 at the half, and a nice comfy lead.

In the last game vs. OKC (Jan. 8) it was the early 3rd when they took control. Same thing @Miami on Jan. 17th. After a couple quick OKC buckets, Tony Parker decided it was time to take over. Halfway through the quarter our lead was back to 15, as Russell Westbrook & Tony Parker took this duel to another level. While this became blatantly obvious, it soon became clear that Tony was playing at a level a notch or two above every one else on the court. Energy.. aggression.. defense.. steals.. a scuffle on the floor. Nearing 30 points, and a nice Spurs' lead, he changed mentality and decided it was time to get the San Antonio franchise assist record over-with. Timmy jumper, Kawhi layup, Green three.. Another quick 8 points, and one more Parker-assisted Bonner three, and we're up 24.

Thunder would actually make it a little interesting, such that Timmy & Tony had to come back in to seal the deal early in the 4th Q. That they did. And Tony would still score yet another 8 for his 42. Sweet, sweet win guys! 13-7 now without Manu. How's that?

Just realized I forgot to review the game against the Grizzlies in Memphis Monday night. We took the court in Memphis ready to see if anything carried over from the very near victory by our bench in Dallas the night before.

The 1st Q stayed close for the most part, until Bonner hit a three with 8 seconds left to give us a 24-19 lead. Blair had an early 6 points to get us going. As soon as the 2nd Q began it was fairly obvious they weren't gonna match our energy. A layup from Tony, and a jumper from Tiago, combined with a three each from Bonner and RJ pushed our lead out to 34-21. Memphis would again go cold for a bit, as they'd be stuck on 28 for about 4 minutes. 5 from Conley and 2 from Sam Young, and our lead of 17 was 10 at the half, 45-35.

Out of the gate in the 3rd Q, RJ hit a three, and Kawhi Leonard picked Rudy Gay's pocket to take it for a nice dunk.. 50-35. It was around this point that Gay finally scored his 1st point of the game - on a FT. Tensions were building, and it was quickly becoming crystal clear that he was extremely frustrated by Kawhi's stifling defense. Teams traded buckets for a while, and our lead shrank to 10 again. We then went on a 15-3 run for almost 7 minutes - our lead grew to 22 - before OJ Mayo hit a shot to close the 3rd Q with the score 75-55.

This time the starters stayed in longer than I thought they should have, but after a late Memphis run (we went scoreless for 5 minutes), we closed them out for the WIN 83-73. Bonner, Timmy, RJ, and Green had 15, 14, 13, and 11 pts. respectively, and Tony added 12 asst. & 5 pts. But the stat of the night was "1": Rudy Gay's total on 0 for 7 shooting in 35 minutes. Rudy, meet Kawhi Leonard. I expect you'll know who he is next time around! Here's the boxscore.

After a day off on Tuesday, the Spurs would begin a 3-games-in-4-nights home stand with, once again (and for the last time), the Houston Rockets last night.

The beginning of this game was turrible, to quote Charles Barkley. The Rockets jumped out to leads of 13-3, 20-7, and 24-9 before a couple layups, and a Gary Neal three gave us some life, and woke up the crowd. Two scoreless minutes later, the 1st Q ended.. 27-16, Houston. Nothing was going in on our end, and their tough shots were falling, as it wasn't bad Spurs' D that saw us fall behind by as much as 19 twice. But the last 4

minutes of the half, with the score 46-27, Timmy & Tony began doing what they do best. We finished up the half strong, 52-39. Kevin Martin had 21, and Courtney Lee had 11 in that half.

The Rockets would again stretch the lead out to 18, but we were staying with them for the most part. Duncan began to take over (17 3rd Q pts.), and combined with another Houston cold-spell, we had closed to within 4 going into the 4th. With the crowd again going nuts, the entire team fed off of it this time. With 7:01 left we took the lead on a Danny Green three, 81-79. It was bucket for bucket - with both defenses cranked up a couple notches - for almost 5 minutes, when Patterson's 16-footer at 2:21 tied it up at 91. It was also the last points the Rockets would score.

Gary Neal nailed a quick jumper. Then after a missed Kevin Martin three, and a nice drawn charge by Neal, Matt Bonner's three with 1:04 left was pretty much the nail in the coffin. Add on 3 FTs, and the game was OURS, 99-91. We held Martin to only 8 2nd-half points (29 total), and as a team outscored them 60-39 in the 2nd half. Timmy had 25 & 7 boards in 31 minutes, and Tony had 24 in 38 minutes (ouch). Bonner's 8 pts. & 10 reb., along with Neal's 15, were some crucial stats as well. (boxscore)

We're now 14-9, 5th in the West. Our defense is definitely improving - allowing only 90.3 ppg in the last 9 games. Tonight it's New Orleans, and then after a critical day of rest, we get the best-in-the-West Oklahoma City Thunder on Saturday.

Wednesday, February 1, 2012

I said what the heck.. I had to try it. 6.0% alcohol by volume, compared to 4.2% for Bud Light, and 5.0% for Budweiser, what I usually drink.. when I drink beer. I don't always drink Budwei-- ..ehh nevermind.

Blue bottle.

It was alright.. Seemed kinda fizzy, but it was a quick smooth fizz. It's very light, but the most noticeable thing about Platinum is its sweetness. It has a very slight fruity taste. It's easy to drink, but has an after-taste that I didn't care for.

I've tasted many beers that were far worse, but I probably won't buy it again.

Monday, January 30, 2012

Hello? America is not winning this drug war. The drugs are still around as much as ever, the only differences are now the prisons are extremely overcrowded, and thousands of people are being killed everyday just because of this war on drugs.

The graph above shows the total prison population. The graph below shows the prison population relative to our entire population as a whole, so it's a percentage.

Sunday night in Dallas, we actually came out hot, and it looked like it was gonna be an easy one - the way the Mavs looked out of the gate. But behind 10-4, Dallas called an early timeout, and things changed. Mavs picked it up, our shots weren't falling - at all, throughout the whole first half. Jason Terry and Vince Carter were making almost everything they put up. Down 24-18 after 1 Q, and down 51-40 at the half.

I will say there were several bad calls in crunch time. Dirk's traveling in the final seconds.. a hard foul on Tiago underneath, the out-of-bounds call that they spent 5 minutes reviewing ..they got wrong, and Marion on the final play may have fouled Matt Bonner 3 times in 3 seconds. But we shouldn't be giving the ball to Bonner in that situation anyway. Wait - he shouldn't have even been in the game at that point, much less in the position to take the 1st option inbounds-pass. And, If there's 0.6 rather than 0.5 on the clock when Danny Green takes that final shot, we win - game over. It was that close.

Gary Neal - You've gotta make that free throw! It was a gimme-bonehead foul anyway. MAKE THEM PAY! Here's the box score.

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